Trump resets US relations with Israel, seeking broader alliance against Islamist Iran, terror

Sarah Netanyahu, Melania Trump, Pres. Trump, Israeli Premier Netanyahu

Pres. Donald Trump demonstrates Israel's first family the respect which Democrat White House denied them.

Transcript And Analysis: Trump And Netanyahu Hold Joint Press Conference

President Trump is hosting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House on Wednesday. The two held a joint press conference amid differing messages emanating from the Trump administration about its stance on the two-state solution in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. NPR journalists with expertise in politics, national security and the Middle East have annotated a transcript of their remarks.

Premier Netanayhu in joint press conference with Pres. Trump

President DONALD TRUMP: Thank you! Today, I have the honor of welcoming my friend, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, to the White House. With his visit, the United States again reaffirms our unbreakable bond with our cherished ally, Israel.

The partnership between our two countries, built on our shared values, has advanced the cause of human freedom, dignity and peace. These are the building blocks of democracy. The state of Israel is a symbol to the world of resilience in the face of oppression. I can think of no other state that's gone through what they've gone, and of survival in the face of genocide. We will never forget what the Jewish people have endured.



Your perseverance in the face of hostility, your open democracy in the face of violence, and your success in the face of tall odds is truly inspirational. The security challenges faced by Israel are enormous, including the threat of Iran's nuclear ambitions, which I've talked a lot about. One of the worst deals I've ever seen is the Iran deal.

My administration has already imposed new sanctions on Iran, and I will do more to prevent Iran from ever developing — I mean ever — a nuclear weapon. Our security assistance to Israel is currently at an all-time high, ensuring that Israel has the ability to defend itself from threats, of which there are unfortunately many.



Both of our countries will continue and grow. We have a long history of cooperation in the fight against terrorism and the fight against those who do not value human life. America and Israel are two nations that cherish the value of all human life.

This is one more reason why we reject unfair and one-sided actions against Israel at the United Nations, which has treated Israel in my opinion very, very unfairly, or other international forums, as well as boycotts that target Israel.

Bibi addresses press conf. with Pres. Trump (Photo: Matzav.com)

Israeli Premier BENJAMIN NETANYAHU:   

President Trump, thank you for the truly warm hospitality. You and Melania have shown me, my wife Sara, our entire delegation. I deeply value your friendship. To me, to the state Israel, it was so clearly evident in the words you just spoke, Israel has no better ally than the United States. And I want to assure you, the United States has no better ally than Israel.

Our alliance has been remarkably strong, but under your leadership, I'm confident it will get even stronger. I look forward to working with you to dramatically upgrade our alliance in every field, in security and technology and cyber and trade and so many others, and I certainly welcome your forthright call to ensure that Israel is treated fairly in international forums and that the slander and boycotts of Israel are resisted mightily by the power and moral position of the United States of America.

As you have said, our lives are based on a deep bond of common values and common interest. And increasingly, those values and interests are under attack by one malevolent force, radical Islamic terror. Mr. President, you've shown great clarity and courage in confronting this challenge head on. You call for confronting Iran's terrorist regime, preventing Iran from realizing this terrible deal into a nuclear arsenal, and you have said that the United States is committed to preventing Iran from getting nuclear weapons. You call for the defeat of ISIS.

Under your leadership, I believe we can reverse the rising tide of radical Islam, and in this great task, as in so many others, Israel stands with you and I stand with you. Mr. President, in rolling back militant Islam, we can seize an historic opportunity because for the first time in my lifetime and for the first time in the life of my country, Arab countries in the region do not see Israel as an enemy, but increasingly as an ally.

Read more (along with NPR's leftist analysis). 

DEBKAfile reports: Trump reacted positively to Netanyahu’s proposal to broaden the Israeli-Palestinian peace process to a regional effort as a “very important” new idea “on a broader canvas” which he believed could succeed. Netanyahu said that the regional fears of Iran also presented an opportunity for cooperation against the Islamic State and radical Islamic terror. 

Trump and Netanyahu putting Palestine in context of
broader Middle East peace arrangement
(Courtesy: La Historia con Mapas)

These sentiments reflected agreement in principle between Trump and Netanyahu to seek an Israeli peace accord with Saudi Arabia and the Gulf emirates as the lead-in to negotiations for an accord with the Palestinians. Egypt, Jordan and Turkey with whom Israel already has normal relations would jump in later. This deal fits in with the US plan reported more than once on these pages for a regional peace between the Sunni Arab nations and the Jewish State.

Some of the spadework may have been performed by CIA Director Mike Pompeo who paid a secret visit to Ramallah Wednesday morning for talks with Mahmoud Abbas, after trips to Ankara and Riyadh, following which Turkey upgraded its diplomatic mission in Israel


This plan was the fulcrum for the president to push back against the two-state solution advocated by the Obama administration as the cure for the conflict. It remains to be seen if this plan takes on life outside the White House and in the region’s capitals.


Trump realistically called on Israel to “hold back settlements,” show flexibility and make compromises for a peace deal. He urged the Palestinians to “get rid of hate starting in the schoolroom.” Whatever the Israelis and Palestinians agree to in direct talks - one state or two – “I will accept,” he said, adding, “I believe we will have a deal that is better than many Israelis think.”

Obama's betrayal of Israel means victory for jihad over the West- French analyst, Guy Milliere

John Kerry, Benjamin Netanyahu, Barak Obama  (Photo: Algemeiner Journal)

"Resolution 2334 and the Paris peace conference, both promoted by Obama, are, as the great historian Bat Ye'or wrote, simply victories for jihad." - Guy Millière in Gatestone Institute | "Obama's Betrayal of Israel , 13 Jan '17

• President Obama's decision not to use the US veto in the UN Security Council and to let pass Resolution 2334, effectively sets the boundaries of a future Palestinian state. The resolution declares all of Judea, Samaria and East Jerusalem -- home to the Old City, the Western Wall and the Temple Mount -- the most sacred place in Judaism -- "occupied Palestinian territory," and is a declaration of war against Israel.
  
  

• 

  Guy Milliere, author, "Twilight over Europe: Europe's
  submission to Islam and to Muslim anti-Semitism"

  Resolution 2334 nullified any possibility of further negotiations by giving the Palestinians everything in exchange for nothing -- not even an insincere promise of peace.
  
  
• The next act is the Orwellian-named "peace conference," to be held in Paris on January 15. It has but one objective: to set the stage to eradicate Israel.
  
  
• In this new "Dreyfus trial," the accused will be the only Jewish state and the accusers will be the OIC and officials from Islamized, dhimmified, anti-Israel Western states. As in the Dreyfus trial, the verdict has been decided before it even starts. Israel will be considered guilty of all charges and condemned. A draft of the declaration to be published at the end of the conference is already available.
  
  
• The declaration rejects any Jewish presence beyond the 1949 armistice lines -- thereby instituting apartheid. It also praises the "Arab Peace Initiative," which calls for returning of millions of so-called "refugees" to Israel, thus transforming Israel into an Arab Muslim state where a massacre of Jews could conveniently be organized.
  
  
• The declaration is most likely meant serve as the basis for a new Security Council resolution on January 17 that would recognize a Palestinian state inside the "1967 borders," and be adopted, thanks to a second US abstention, three days before Obama leaves office. The betrayal of Israel by the Obama administration and by Obama himself would then be complete.
  
  
Guy Milliere exclusive video interview with DemoCast 

• The US Congress is already discussing bills to defund the UN and the Palestinian Authority. If Europeans think that the incoming Trump administration is as spineless as the Obama administration, they are in for a shock.
  
  
• Khaled Abu Toameh noted that the Palestinian Authority sees Resolution 2334 as a green light for more murders and violence.
  
  
• Daniel Pipes recently wrote that it is time to acknowledge the failure of a "peace process" that is really a war process. He stresses that peace can only come when an enemy is defeated.
  
  
• Resolution 2334 and the Paris conference, both promoted by Obama, are, as the great historian Bat Ye'or wrote, simply a victory for jihad.
  
Read more

Israeli Amb. Michael Oren "Ally" book tour video - revealing the secrets behind the spin

Former Israeli Amb. to US Michael Oren at Nixon Library July 2, '15

In his revealing auto-biography, "Ally: My Journey Across the American-Israeli Divide," American-born Michael Oren discusses his experience becoming appointed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to work with the Obama administration as Israel's ambassador to the U.S. 


Recorded before an audience at L.A.'s Museum of Tolerance, in a speech and conversation with David Suissa of the Jewish Journal of Los Angeles. July 1, 2015.



Above, Amb. Oren fields a broad range of questions from the audience (in two segments).

David Bernstein in the Washington Post refers to "How Israel Got Taken" a review of the book by Michael Doran in Mosaic Magazine. Doran claims that "Netanyahu undertook, at American insistence, an unprecedented settlement freeze, became the first Likud prime minister to endorse the establishment of a Palestinian state, and refrained from engaging in military action against Iran. He might have added that Netanyahu released hundreds of terrorist murderers to further John Kerry’s misbegotten “peace process.” While Netanyahu hasn’t always behaved well, even when he did the White House’s bidding he was met solely with contempt, more contempt than the Obama Administration has shown for any other foreign leader. That would be okay, if one really trusted Obama on the one issue key to Israeli security (and, in my opinion, key to the security of the entire Middle East and therefore to American security), preventing Iran from getting nuclear weapons."

United Against Nuclear Iran group has published this public service political advertisement:

1 million Palestinian Muslims demonstrate goal of reconquering Jewish Israel

Palestinians Dream of Destroying Israel, Peace Treaty or Not

by Khaled Abu Toameh, in Gatestone Institute  March 25, '14

U.S. President Barack Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry may be able to force Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, under threats and pressure, to sign a "framework agreement" with Israel.  But as this week's rally of hatred in the Gaza Strip shows, even after the signing of a Palestinian-Israeli "peace" treaty, a large number of Palestinians will not abandon there dream of destroying Israel. 

"Jihad in Palestine is not terrorism. Jihad in Palestine is a sacred duty." — Yusef Rizka, representative of Hamas 

A mass rally held in the Gaza Strip on March 23 showed that Hamas continues to enjoy popular support among Palestinians. Tens of thousands of Palestinians took to the streets to attend the rally commemorating the 10th anniversary of the assassination of Hamas founder Sheikh Ahmed Yassin. 

(Photo: The Palestinian Information Center)

Hamas officials claim that nearly one million Palestinians attended the rally in the center of Gaza City. March 23, '14.

Palestinian Authority [PA] President Mahmoud Abbas has good reason to be worried in the aftermath of the latest show of force by Hamas. When tens of thousands of Palestinians take to the streets of the Gaza Strip to call for the destruction of Israel and an end to the peace talks between the PA and Israel, it is clear that a large segment of Palestinian society remains opposed to any compromise with Israel.

                                                             (Video: Courtesy IDF-North American Desk)

The pro-Hamas rally is also aimed at sending a message to the U.S. Administration that Mahmoud Abbas does not have a mandate to sign any document that declares an end to the conflict with Israel.

U.S. President Barack Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry may be able to force Abbas, under threats and pressure, to sign a "framework agreement" with Israel. But as this week's rally of hatred in the Gaza Strip shows, even after the signing of an Israeli-Palestinian "peace" treaty, a large number of Palestinians will not abandon their dream of destroying Israel.

Video: "The Middle East Today: A post-Arab-spring analysis" from AIPAC Policy Conference. Bret Stephens, Robert Satloff, & Amos Harel (Ha'aretz)

"The Middle East Today: A post-Arab-spring analysis" from the most recent AIPAC Policy Conference in Washington, March 2013.

Robert Satloff: Executive Director, Washington Institute for Near East Policy
Amos Harel: Ha'aretz newspaper, military correspondent and defense analyst
Bret Stephens: Foreign affairs columnist & Editorial Board member, The Wall St. Journal
Moderator: David Victor: former President, AIPAC



(Advance through playlist via menu button, 3rd icon from lower right)


Audience questions and panelists' answers 

Prof. Barry Rubin's death revives interest in video interview about his views on west's Mid-East policies

Barry Rubin, a prominent Middle East policy analyst, died in
Israel on Monday following an 18-month struggle with lung cancer. Prof. Rubin survived just past his 64th birthday.  He is survived by his journalist wife, Judith Colp Rubin, and their daughter and son.

Barry Rubin’s reach in the world of Middle East scholarship was broad and deep.  He served as director of the Global Research in International Affairs Center at the Herzliya Interdisciplinary Center, a columnist at The Jerusalem Post, the editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs and a contributor to the PJ Media website.

History-buff Rubins participated in Civil War re-enactments

Rubin, a D.C. native, had been a Fulbright scholar and a fellow of the Council on Foreign Relations. He received his doctorate from Georgetown University in 1978. He was a noted skeptic of Palestinian nationalism, saying that Islamism was too deeply embedded in the region to accommodate a true peace with Israel.


“Clearly, the Obama administration does not understand Middle Eastern regimes and terrorist organizations, and if it doesn’t, it will meet miserable defeats,” he wrote on Jan. 12 at PJMedia.

His passing revives interest in his ideas. We re-publish an article of Mr. Rubin's on the Obama administration's Middle East policy, supplemented with a TV interview he did with us in 2011.

"The Solution: How to Deal with Obama Middle-East Policy" by Barry Rubin 

It is likely that the efforts of the Obama Administration during its second term will fail, not only because of its lack of understanding of the region and its ideology, but also due to the specific agenda.  No Middle Eastern country (only hostile ones or movements) can depend on the United States.  And to clarify this further:  No country -- including Israel -- can depend on the Obama Administration.

But as I noted above, this U.S. policy of Obama’s second term will fail. For example, the main goals of the second term are four big issues:

1)  Israel-Palestinian peace

2) Egypt government coalition with Muslim Brotherhood

3) Syrian civil war resolution with rebel victory

4)  U.S.-Iran rapprochement resolving nuclear issue.

Video 1- Leftist journalistic-bias intentionally whitewashes malevolence of Muslim Brotherhood

Yet because of irreconcilable differences, these may well be unresolvable. Due to such failures and hardline radical positions (Palestinians, Muslim Brotherhood, Syrian Islamists and regime, Iranian regime), the next administration would probably be forced back on recognition of extremism, support of allies, and U.S. interests.

Thus, regarding the “peace process,” we may well see the typical pattern in which the Palestinians wreck the peace process by rejecting or demanding even more concessions. Once again, it will only be necessary to wait until American negotiators learn better why their goals are impossible. Radicals will just raise their demands and demonstrate their anti-Americanism, and necessary priorities will shift.

With photo-ops with Netanyahu in the album, Obama denies ally Israel's reasoned requests vis a vis Iran sanctions, ceding strategic land to Palestine, Russia / Syria WMD

Updated: Amos Harel in Ha'aretz || Analysis Oct 9th: When it comes to Iran, Israel is walking a fine line in Washington 

Lobbying Congress for tougher sanctions against Iran risks incurring Obama Administration’s wrath.

Israel is conducting a diplomatic campaign aimed at blunting the success of the so-called charm offensive led by Iranian President Hassan Rohani during his visit to the United Nations last month. After the Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s aggressive speeches, Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon, who is now in the United States, is focused on persuading the Americans not to allow any relaxation of the sanctions on Iran before Tehran signs a binding agreement that will slam the brakes on its nuclear program. In the background, Israel is canvassing Congress with a more ambitious goal in mind – intensifying the sanctions, a move that could lead to a confrontation with the Obama administration, which opposes doing so at this stage.   . . .

Jerusalem now realizes, perhaps more than at earlier stages, the full ramifications of conducting an independent military strike on Iran against the will of the United States. A former senior defense official, who played a major role in recent years in the relations between the two countries, told Haaretz this week that an Israeli strike after an agreement is reached between Iran and the world powers and against the latter’s will, on grounds that the compromise reached was insufficient, could be likened to “an act of strategic suicide.”

'Don't say I didn't warn you' || Ahead of Iran talks, Netanyahu tries to convince Europe not to ease sanctions by Barak Ravid in Ha'aretz Oct 10 21:04

In a series of press interviews, Netanyahu urges European countries to stop Iran’s race for a nuclear bomb while it’s still possible; insists Israel is not isolated.

 On Thursday, Netanyahu gave interviews to several leading media outlets in the three European powers participating in the talks – France, Britain and Germany. The other members of the P5+1 are the United States, Russia and China. In Britain, he spoke to the Financial Times and the Sky television network, in France to Le Monde and the France 24 network, and in Germany to Frankfurter Allgemeine and the ARD network.

A press statement issued by the Prime Minister’s Office said that in these interviews, Netanyahu urged European countries to stop Iran’s race for a nuclear bomb while it’s still possible.

“The [Iranian] regime is currently smiling and saying, ‘You know what? Let me continue enriching uranium, let me keep my plutonium plants, and I’ll give you tactical concessions, cosmetic concessions, and you’ll ease the sanctions,’” the Hebrew-language statement said, summarizing Netanyahu’s message.

“But if the sanctions are eased, the sanctions will collapse. They’ll get everything they want, and we, collectively, won’t get anything. Don’t say I didn’t warn you. The Jewish people has been around for 4,000 years. They tried to destroy us over and over, but they didn’t succeed, and we also won’t let people like the ayatollahs succeed. It’s important to stress that this isn’t just an Israeli issue; this issue also affects you.”

In an exclusive interview with France 24, Netanyahu urged France to take a tough stance on Iran and look past Prime Minister Hassan Rohani’s “smile campaign.”

“I don’t have any problem telling the truth even if it’s not popular. It so happens that I’m not isolated - Israel is not isolated,” Netanyahu said.

“Just about every country in the Arab world agrees with our position; some say so openly, some say that less openly. There’s one country who doesn’t agree with us: Syria’s Assad, of course, because he supports Iran’s regime that continues to help him in the mass murder of women and children.”

Demonstrated Palestinian irredentism undercuts illusion of peaceful Palestinian state- says Gov. Mike Huckabee

Gov. Mike Huckabee receives Gush Katif Museum award with American Zionist leaders in March 2013


Gov. Mike Huckabee speaks at press conference and banquet, along with Zionists who experienced Israel's Gush Katif communities, including Mrs. Rivka Goldschmidt, who Israel resettled out of Gaza expecting peace from the Palestinians.
(Advance through video playlist through lower center buttons).


Co-organizer of the Gush Katif Museum event , Dr. Joseph Frager, discusses the legacy of Palestinian aggression which followed Israel's withdrawing all Jewish communities and police from Gaza in 2005.



Dr. Frager and colleagues Dr. Paul and Mrs. Drora Brody will be making the case to keep Jerusalem united at their 20th annual, Concert with a Message, the Israel Day Concert in Central Park on Sunday June 2nd, 2013.  Rabbi David Algaze explained from there how Palestine's incited Islamism will pose threats against, not peace for, Israel



Israeli Knesset Member Danny Danon comments on Pres. Obama's rush to force Israel to split Jerusalem among the territories to create a state of Palestine: "Mr. Obama, keep your hands off of (united) Jerusalem!"

Why Hamas Wants To Join the PLO

Why Hamas Wants To Join the PLO by Khaled Abu Toameh in Hudson-NY

Hamas' Ismail Haniya shakes with
PA Pres. Mahmoud Abbas

Hamas's decision to join the PLO is seen by some Western analysts and governments as a sign that the Islamist movement is headed toward "moderation" and "pragmatism."

But in 2012, if the agreement with Abbas is implemented, Hamas will take control over the PLO.

Hamas is joining the PLO not because it has changed, but out of a desire to make the Fatah-dominated organization stick to its true mission: the liberation of Palestine from Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea -- in other words, all the land that is currently Israel -- and to achieve the "right of return" for Palestinian refugees to their original villages and homes inside Israel.

Read it all

Lessons of The Gilad Shalit Affair - collected analysis

Palestinian "armed-struggle" shows no sign of relenting against Israel's moral code.

Sober criticism from analysts around the world:

The Infernal Choice by Melanie Philips in the Daily Mail (UK)

An obscene moral equivalence has been established by this deal between the innocent and the guilty.
This equivalence is being played out in the coverage which describes the deal as a ‘prisoner swap’ or ‘prisoner exchange’ – more than 1000 Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails for one Israeli prisoner held by Hamas. But Shalit was a hostage, kidnapped in an act of illegal aggression by an organisation whose aim is the destruction of Israel and which allowed him not one visit by the Red Cross during his five year incarceration.

By contrast, the released Palestinians have not just been tried and punished according to due process of law, but include among their number not just those who have committed some of the worst terrorist atrocities in Israel’s history – such as the blowing up of Sbarro’s pizza restaurant in Jerusalem, where 16 people were murdered including five members of the Schijveschuurder family -- but even worse, some of the masterminds behind such atrocities.

Gilad reunited with father Noam Shalit at Tel Nof Air Base

The equivalence being drawn in the coverage of this deal reflects in turn the morally bankrupt ‘tit-for-tat’ analysis of the Arab war against Israel employed by so many in Britain and the west. For whenever Israel points out that any military action against the Palestinians is only in response to Palestinian attacks, many in Britain claim that those Palestinian attacks were only in response to previous Israeli attacks. Thus Israel is always painted as the ultimate aggressor.

This is entirely false. From the moment Israel was re-established in 1948, it has only ever launched military operations against the Arabs in response to actual or imminent Arab attacks. Yet many in Britain refuse to acknowledge the difference between murderous aggression and the defence against it.

They refuse to acknowledge that Hamas sets out to murder as many young Israelis as possible, whereas Israel goes to great lengths (not always successfully) to avoid civilian casualties. They refuse to acknowledge that the aim of every single military operation by Israel in Gaza is to defend and protect itself against attack by a fanatically Jew-hating enemy pledged not only to destroy Israel but to wipe out every single Jew on earth.

The refusal to acknowledge this crucial moral difference has meant that many in Britain and the west view Israel as the aggressor in the conflict, and the victimisation of Israelis is largely glossed over. So just as the anguish of Israeli terror victims’ families over the Shalit deal has been minimised by the media coverage – particularly in Israel itself, which reflects the malign nature of its own left-wing media class -- so the anguish of Israel itself as a state under permanent existential siege is routinely ignored, and Israel instead grotesquely portrayed as the aggressor in the region. . . .

What too many in Britain and the west still don’t understand is that what Israel is up against is what Britain and the west are now up against – not a violent campaign by people fighting for a state of their own but an Islamist cult of death, in which the murder of innocents is a cause for exultation and mass killers are lionised as heroes and religious martyrs, not just by Hamas but by the Fatah leadership in the West Bank too.

The five-year Shalit drama and its disturbing resolution have therefore come to symbolise the toxic cocktail of ignorance, misunderstanding, naivety, malice, cowardice, cynicism, incompetence and moral muddle by the so-called civilised world – including Israel itself -- that has actually served to perpetuate the Middle East impasse.

No decent person can fail to be moved by the return of Gilad Shalit to Israel. Few eyes will have been dry at his reunion with his family. Yet it has to be said that ultimately, this deal represents a triumph of heart over head and sentimentality over realism.  . . .

Israel is now trapped between Hamas, Fatah, Hezbollah, Iran, Syria, Egypt and the Mediterranean Sea – and yet is blamed for preventing peace by building apartments in the suburbs of Jerusalem. The infernal choice it was forced to make over Gilad Shalit was thus but the latest and most dramatic example of how the West has abandoned Israel to swing in the wind.  Read it all

The National Review Online published this analysis by Holocaust expert, Giulio Meotti

The Shalit Affair: Inviting Aggression

Israelis rallied to leaders to free kidnapped Gilad Shalit
(Photo courtesy: San Francisco Sentinel 12/21/09)

Since Israel allowed the PLO and its terror armies to move their bases from Tunis to Judea, Samaria, and Gaza in 1994, nearly 2,000 Israeli families have involuntarily paid the ultimate price in the “peace process.” The Shalit deal is a moral defeat- most especially for these families of the victims of terrorism: Israel just cancelled more than 900 life sentences to embrace again one soldier. Meir Schijveschuurder, who lost his parents and three of his siblings in the suicide bombing in the Sbarro restaurant in Jerusalem in 2001, yesterday declared against the deal: “We feel like a man who woke up in Germany a day after World War II.”

Terrorism is now sanctified throughout all the Palestinian areas. The streets are plastered with posters glorifying terrorists and suicide bombers. Children trade “martyr cards” the way Western children trade baseball cards. Necklaces with pictures of terrorists, many released today by Israel, are very popular. Signs on the walls of Palestinian kindergartens currently proclaim their pupils as “the martyrs of tomorrow.” Elementary-school principals commend their students for wanting to “tear their [Zionists’] bodies into little pieces and cause them more pain than they will ever know.” Unlike terrorists in other parts of the world, the Palestinian movement aspires to immortality and its violence is always “sacred.” That’s why the freed terrorists will return to kill the Jews.

(Photo: Salon.com)

The Almagor association revealed that 177 Israelis have been killed by prisoners released by Israel in previous deals. The Jews living in the settlements are afraid of a new round of killings. “Many terrorists have been allowed to return to live near our homes, it’s a shock and a disaster,” Hillel Weiss, professor of literature at Bar-Ilan University and a leader in the settlement community, tells me. The deal is a victory for terrorism, since Hamas can now justly demonstrate that killing Jews is infinitely more effective than negotiations in achieving their objectives. It will also be much easier to recruit terrorists when they are encouraged to believe that no matter how many Israelis they kill, there is every likelihood that, if apprehended, they will be released. 

Releasing the terrorists meant saving Gilad’s life, but it also means that more Jews will die and more soldiers will be kidnapped. Now many Israelis ask: How many more lives are to be sacrificed before the rest of the released men — and those to be released in future exchanges — are put behind bars again?  Appeasement breeds only death and destruction. Capitulating will culminate in greater disasters.

Marketing Gilad Schalit 

by Caroline B. Glick  10/21/2011 

Internal contradiction at the heart of the consensus for ransoming Schalit for terrorists renders it likely that the unanimity now surrounding the deal will evaporate soon.

Gilad Schalit is home. And that is wonderful. The terrorists Israel released in exchange for the IDF soldier held hostage by Hamas for more than five years are running around Judea, Samaria and Gaza promising to return to terror. And that is a nightmare. 

. . . Given the media’s unchecked power to repeatedly manipulate public opinion to adhere to its radical ideological agenda, it is essential that the government and Knesset step in and reform the media market. Broadcast licensing procedures for television and radio must be deregulated. Television and radio must be open to competition. Broadcasters should be allowed to broadcast whatever they want whenever they want, and the market should dictate who rises and who falls. This is the only way to protect the public against manipulation, and the government from blackmail.

How long can Israel delay the jihadist, Palestinian nationalism juggernaut?

P.A. head, Mahmoud Abbas submitted an application for a sovereign and independent homeland, which he said contains a request for full member nation status in the UN based on the June 4, 1967 borders. He addressed the General Assembly.



Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu gave his own speech in his response, in which he called on Abbas to drop unilateral moves and return to the negotiating table.

“President Abbas, why don’t you join me?” said Netanyahu. “We have to stop negotiating about the negotiations. Let’s just get on with it. Let’s negotiate peace! Now we’re in the same city. We’re in the same building. So let’s meet here today, in the United Nations!”

Hamas’ Gaza Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh said that the PA should not beg for a state, adding that “liberation of Palestinian land” should come first.

He said that “what is happening at the United Nations harms the dignity of our Palestinian people,” particularly when there is no guarantee of the ‘right of return’ (the Arabs’ wish to have millions of so-called ‘Palestinian refugees’ - the descendants of Arabs who fled Israel before the 1948 Arab-Israeli war – to return to Israeli cities).  Israel National News

Land for 'peace' won't work without exchanging all Muslims from Israel to the proposed "State of Palestine" in exchange for their intended expelling of Jews from Judea and Samaria.

Prof. Abe Sion explains why it would be unsafe to trust irredentist Muslims to keep Israel safe from an Islamist Palestine ruled by Hamas. He cites Israel having ceded the Sinai Peninsula to Egypt in 1981- now at a defensive disadvantage from Islamist territorial aggression.



The Latma TV comedy troupe sends-up the United Nations's hypocrisy in their new, "Somebody to Hate" music video:

Live from AIPAC: Douglas Murray reacts to Obama advocating Jews cede Judea to an Islamist Palestine

Associate Director of Britain's Henry Jackson Society, Douglas Murray, discusses his concerns about Israel's security in view of Pres. Obama's middle-east policies. A exclusive DemoCast video from the AIPAC Policy Conference 2011 in Washington, DC.
An outspoken critic of political Islam, British Mr. Murray is the author of Neoconservatism: Why We Need It (2005) and is published in The Spectator and Standpoint.

Obama and Netanyahu to meet; each will address AIPAC Policy Conference; L.A. demonstrators reveal obstacles

Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will meet with President Barack Obama in Washington on Friday. Jewish-Americans gathering for the annual AIPAC Policy Conference in Washington Sunday will be addressed by Pres. Obama on Sunday, then Prime Minister Netanyahu on Monday. Following meeting with Jordan's King Abdullah today, President Obama is renewing his pressing Israel to facilitate a state for Palestinian Arabs. But what kind of safety would a Palestinian sovereignty provide Jews - after a generation of irredentist Palestinian inculcation to liberate all former Mandate Palestine - sponsored by Islamist imperialists?



A small group of Zionistic Christians and Jews received and returned the vitriol cast by a Nakba rally comprised of Moslems, the far-left, and leftist Jewish Voice for Peace- staged outside the Israeli Consulate in L.A., on Sunday, May 15, 2011.

As DemoCast's news-video reveals, participants voiced their concerns about each-other's side and intentions. An Iranian Jewish refugee decries Islam's mistreatment of religious and cultural minorities. A Palestinian refugee bemoans the Arab refugees still yearning to return from refugee camps to their former homes, and curses the Jews who returned to Israel as a refuge for Jews.

Gaza terror group steps-up the heat against Palestinian reunification through Jerusalem bomb; kills woman tourist, wounds dozens including 2 pregnant women

In the wake of a popular movement to remake Palestinian rule by uniting Fatah with Hamas, a terror group with links to Hezbollah lauded the bombing of a Jerusalem bus-stop today. The blast killed a 59-year old tourist, and wounded dozens more, including 2 pregnant women.

Globes news reports: On Wednesday a pipe bomb exploded today near Bus 174 in Jerusalem. The attack took place at the entrance to the city, near Binyanei Ha'uma Conference Center. Emergency services rushed to the scene. One woman who was critically injured later died of her wounds. Three other injuries were termed serious, and there were dozens of other injured people.

Rescue workers: Pregnant women among Jerusalem blast victims  from the Jewish Chronicle by Jennifer Lipman and Jessica Elgot  March 23, '11

Rescue workers attend to victims of the blast. The terror
 act wounded more than 24 people and killed a lady tourist.

Israeli emergency workers have spoken of treating injured pregnant women and seeing pools of blood at the scene of the bomb near Jerusalem’s central bus station today.

Yonatan Yogadovsky, director of the Magen David Adom (MDA) international department , said ambulances were on the scene immediately to tend to the wounded, estimated to include more than 30 civilians.

Mr Yogadovsky, who was director of MDA’s Jerusalem operation during both intifadas, said: “The streets were packed with people during the evening commute, as workers left for home and children finished school.

“There were two pregnant women injured and taken to the hospital by MDA.”

He added: “The people who were badly injured were outside near the explosive device and some people inside the number 74 bus [which was stopped when the bomb exploded] were lightly and moderately injured.”

Motti Bukchin, a volunteer for clean-up organisation ZAKA, said: “When we arrived at the site of the attack, we saw two women lying in huge pools of blood on the pavement.”

Video from the scene in this report by InfoLive.TV in Israel:

The suitcase bomb blasted hundreds of ball-bearings into the crowd and bus, Israel Police Spokesman Mickey Rosenfeld told reporters on an Israel Project tele-conference.

Watch Herzliya Policy Conference live from Israel Feb 6 - 9

“The Herzliya Conference is the grand summit on Israel’s national security and Middle East affairs; the Davos of the Middle East”
Mortimer Zuckerman, Chairman and Editor-in-Chief, U.S. News and World Report
Video from: The Herzliya Debate: "Can the World Live with a Nuclear Iran?"

Speakers: Mr. Brian Katulis, Senior Fellow, Center of American Progress; Ms. Danielle Pletka, Vice Persident, Foreign and Defence Policy studies, American Enterprise Institute; Brig. Gen (res.) Dr. Ephraim Sneh, Former Deputy Minister of Defence, Chair S. Daniel Abraham Center for Stategic Dialogue, Netanya Academic College.
THE HERZLIYA CENTER STAGE: A GLOBAL POLICY AND MEDIA EVENT
Program Schedule    Watch live video from the Conference
The Herzliya Conference is a center stage for policy assessment and analysis on Israeli, Middle Eastern and global affairs, and a catalyst for policy implementation.
The 11th Annual Herzliya Conference is held on February 6-9, 2011 during Tel Aviv business hours 10:00-21:00 (GMT-2, EST 3am-2pm, PST 12am-11am). Includes strategic directions of the key regional actors, the Middle East Peace Process, the future of Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, domestic political stability in the Middle East, energy and natural resource security and geopolitics, regional and global economic governance, as well as new forms of cyber and missile warfare and the attempts to curb nuclear proliferation. Shaping regional and international policy debates, the deliberations at Herzliya will also address Israeli responses to these challenges and strategies to pro-actively confront the "soft war" launched against the legitimacy of Israel's right to self-defense, its inherent obligation to vigorously pursue its national interests, and even its very existence as a Jewish state.
The Conference provides an opportunity for leaders to launch initiatives and to deliver major public statements on the evolving policy approaches to global, regional and national affairs.

Ma'ariv newspaper editorialist, and university lecturer Ben-Dror Yemini speaks with DemoCast about what he terms "the industry of lies" perpetrated by the mainstream media vis a vis Palestine vs. Israel.

At 5th anniversary of Israel's "Disengagement" from Gaza- spokesman Ra'anan Gissin assesses lessons learned about the parties and the media

Israel's press spokesman under Prime Ministers Ariel Sharon and Ehud Olmert, Ra'anan Gissin, is asked about the lessons for the world from Israel's withdrawal of 8,000 Jewish citizens from Gaza & Samaria to show its commitment towards peace - and the preparedness of the Palestinian Arabs to live peaceably and autonomously alongside the Jewish State of Israel.

Why wasn't Israel's Netanyahu photographed with Obama?

The White House has waved off suggestions that President Barak Obama was "embarrassed" to be photographed with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, amid questions over the minimal media coverage of their meeting in Washington this week.

"We were very comfortable with the coverage for last night's meeting," said White House spokesman Robert Gibbs.  But media-savvy critics have posted their own commentary on the matter, with video clips like this emerging on You Tube:
When asked in a press conference on Wednesday whether he saw "any contradiction at all when the Secretary of State goes before AIPAC and says that the U.S. has no stronger, no closer ally than Israel - and then the President won't even allow a photograph of him and the Israeli Prime Minister", Gibbs responded: "No, I don't see a contradiction at all."  (Ha'aretz)